Morton votes down liquor sales in village drug stores

Monday

Jun 2, 2014 at 10:46 PM

Steve Stein of the Journal Star @SpartanSteve

MORTON — Beer and wine sales will not be allowed in village drug stores.

Village Board trustees voted 4-2 Monday against liquor ordinance amendments that would have created a Class I license for a business that sells primarily pharmaceutical-related products and has a minimum 10,000 square feet of floor space.

One Class I license would have been available for the CVS store on West Jackson Street that had requested it.

The owner of the two Yogi’s Super Liquors stores in Morton asked trustees not to allow drug store sales of beer and wine.

Ashish Patel said his stores have suffered financially since the board voted in 2008 to allow grocery stores to sell beer and wine. Kroger and Walmart each has a license.

“I believe in free enterprise, but we’re just mom-and-pop stores who don’t sell produce or have a pharmacy, and we can’t afford more competition.

“This isn’t Peoria or East Peoria. How many more places (where beer and wine are sold) can Morton support?”

Trustees Sam Heer and Tom Daab sided with Patel. They voted against the drug store beer and wine license along with Stephen Newhouse and Ginger Hermann, who cited different reasons.

Heer and Daab said the board hurt local businesses in October when it banned state-regulated video gambling in the village, and they didn’t want to see it happen again.

“We don’t need to put more of our local businesses at a disadvantage,” Heer said.

“We showed a lack of support for local businesses (with the 4-3 video gambling vote), and I don’t see how we can now support a national concern (CVS),” Daab said.

Heer and Daab voted for video gambling.

Newhouse, who cast the other vote for video gambling, said he was concerned about a creating a proliferation of businesses in the village that sold beer and wine.

“That’s tacky, and I don’t like tacky,” he said.

Hermann said when a compromise was reached among trustees in 2008 to allow beer and wine sales in grocery stores, it was with the understanding “that was going to be it. We don’t need another liquor license (for drug stores).”